Well, after a little digging around we found several more particularly funny charity videos – and these are five more of our favourites.

1. Smithy ‘Winning’ Sports Personality Of The Year

One of the most popular British comedies in recent years has been ‘Gavin and Stacey’. Running from 2007 to 2010, it launched the careers of several cast members, but most notably James ‘Smithy’ Cordon.

A huge sports fan, it made sense for a charity to try and capitalise on the popularity of Smithy – and that’s exactly what BBC Sports Relief did in 2010.

Using the ‘Sports Personality Of The Year’ set, the whole video revolves around Smithy winning the main award and everyone accepting it as being perfectly normal, even though he’s arguably the least-typical person to be nominated.

Not promoting the charity directly, the video did wonders for BBC’s Sports Relief, as it proved to be one of the most popular aspects of the event in 2010, with over 2.5 million views on YouTube.

2. Testicular Cancer Public Service Announcement

A particularly funny video aimed at raising the awareness of testicular cancer, this video isn’t actually associated with one specific charity. However, it’s easily understandable how it could have raised the awareness of both testicular cancer and a charity, especially in a way that’s going to be memorable to the target audience.

Although the video is a little crude in places, it’s this that actually helps the video reach out perfectly to the young males it needs to.

Funny to watch, but with enough clear and concise information to make you sit up and pay attention (as well as act on the advice that’s been given after you’ve watched the video), it might not seem it to some, but this is a perfect example of how a video should be created when you’re looking to engage with a specific audience – develop the video for them first and foremost and put your messaging in secondary, as this way you can be certain they’re going to watch it and pay attention.

3. Flight Of The Conchords’s ‘Feel Inside (and stuff like that)’ Song For CureKids

What’s been proven to work wonders for charities? Songs.

What else has helped over the years? Comedy.

So, why not bring them together and create a video that, based on the above two points, is destined to be a hit?

Well, that’s exactly what Flight Of The Conchord’s did for the CureKids charity.

With a charity song being released for the cause, this video follows the supposed development of the song and incorporates one thing that’s almost guaranteed to get you smiling – funny children.

At 14 minutes long, this comedy sketch really draws you in and makes you take notice of the overall charity, something that should be the primary focus of any charity video.

4. BBC Newsreaders Dance To Beyonce

Some of the most successful charity fundraising videos are those which take you by surprise, as when you’re not expecting something, whether you like it or not, you’re generally gripped to the screen.

In 2009, the BBC struck again with another ingenious idea after truly understanding this concept – they had their usually formal and professional newsreaders dressing up and dancing to Beyonce.

Awkward, cringeworthy and making you hide behind your hands, there’s something particularly addictive about watching people doing something you’d never expect them to – and it’s this type of addiction that charities crave for when creating videos.

5. PDDCS’s BT Tower Climb

When you first start watching this video, you feel like you’re just watching a traditional charity fundraising video. The setting is sombre and the message appears to be bleak.

But then the people start talking about stairs and you begin to realise that everything isn’t as it first seems.

Created by the people from PDDCS (the Peterborough and District Deaf Children’s Society), the video talks about how stairs are being neglected in favour of lifts. Really grabbing your attention as the topic is – to all intents and purposes – a little absurd, you keep watching as you want to know where they’re going to go with it.

After continuing the hilarious information about stairs becoming increasingly unpopular and there being a need to start using them more, the video explains that the people at PDDCS are going to be climbing over 300 stairs at London’s BT Tower to raise money for Action on Hearing Loss.

As soon as they mention this, they then do two very important things that are often left out of charity fundraising videos – they give you some clear, straight-to-the-point facts about the cause they’re supporting and then offer direct information on how you can donate. They aren’t overly pushy with the information, but they provide it in a way that, at the very least, makes you want to click through to find out more.

Raising money for charity isn’t an easy feat by anyone’s standards, but creating a funny video is a great way to help increase the awareness of everything from your charity dare right through to a full event. And, as can be seen by these five videos, they really do work.

Have you created a video for a charity or know of any other particularly funny charity videos? We’d love to see them!

PS – we recently created our own charity video and we’d love to hear your feedback on it!

One Response to 5 (More!) Of The World’s Funniest Charity Videos

I think humor is an underused tactic in charity videos. Most charities seem to think that shocking and upsetting videos = success, while that may have been true at first, the sheer volume of competing videos has fatigued the public and rendered them ineffective. Using humor would allow them to stand out from the crowd, which is more important now than it ever has been.